Posts Tagged ‘Alan Wiley’

As I started writing this, a small advert promoting a one of the nation’s favourite chocolate bars popped up in the corner of my screen to tell me that ‘Mr.T is watching Britain’. Quite how the bechained former A-Team aviophobic has achieved an omnipresent state, I haven’t the foggiest, but the pressure to make this piece entertaining has certainly increased ten-fold as a result. The last thing I need is a washed-up 80s actor/boxer/’style icon’ driving a tank onto my lawn, pelting me with Snickers bars, and telling me to get some nuts.

So for both your benefit, and for Mr T’s, let me get to the point of the latest ludicrously inaccurate take on one of football’s most popular stories of the last seven days. This week I have focussed my attentions on mild-mannered Scot, Sir Alex Ferguson, and his ‘spat’ with olympic athlete (and Premier League referee) Sir Alan Wiley. I used inverted commas on the word ‘spat’ (see I did it again) because I’m not sure that it really was a ‘spat’.

To me, ‘spat’ is a word that is ONLY allowed to appear in tabloid newspapers (I assume Murdoch has bought the rights to it), and must be applied when referring to a tenuously interesting account of two grown men publically slagging each other off. In this case however, it was just old whiskey-nose who was doing the slagging off, as he went on air to question the olympian’s fitness and, therefore, ability to referee a football match.

Clearly drawing inspiration from Rocky (the film, not the buscuit), Alan Wiley is a man on a mission. To prove his accuser wrong he has sought the help of the only man who knows how, head-honcho of the Officials’ Union Alan Leighton. Leighton has just the plan to force the United boss into eating his scotch-soaked words. He will take this meagre olympian and turn him into the fittest and greatest referee the world has ever seen. A mix between Pierluigi Collina and Sally Gunnell if you will, although obviously not as scary looking as that particular combination might sound.

The picture depicts a key moment in the story and, just like a grainy camera-phone picture of David Bentley snorting cocaine in a Spanish nightclub, is our first glimpse into what our protagonist has been up to during the international break. Leighton who, just like Rocky’s friend in the film, appears to inexplicably own a meat-packing plant, has our man Alan punching the carcass of an 1000lb dead cow in a bid to strengthen him up and build the character necessary to simply switch off the hairdyer, unplug it, and tuck it away in the drawer. Metaphorically speaking of course, which is why you can see a portrait of the red-faced United manager hanging on the wall, not a Remington Airwave 500. It’s all the motivation our man in black needs.

My anticipation of Wiley’s re-appearance this weekend as a hulking great powerhouse of a ref is growing. If the Rocky films have taught us anything, it is almost certainly as follows; ‘Use unconventional methods of training exceptionally hard for a short period of time, making sure that there is a cheesy 1980s soundtrack at the heart of it all, and you will be able to master anything’. I therefore fully expect that his work this week will pay off.

That being the case, what sweet justice it would be for Wiley if, in the 90th minute of United’s final game of the season, the referee called upon his newfound fitness levels to keep up with the rapid speed of James Beattie, and be there on the spot to witness and award a clear penalty to Stoke. Beattie converts the spot kick. United lose. Chelsea are giftied the title.

Fergie, be careful what you wish for.

If you want to get involved and do your own Microsoft Paint Story Of The Week, then draw it in Paint, and send it to me at eddiesfootballblog@hotmail.co.uk. If it is funny it doesn’t matter how crap the drawing is (the crapper the better actually!), and it will make it on the site! No Photoshop! 🙂